Category: Interviews

Aki Cederberg is the author of the recently-released Journeys In The Kali Yuga. Cederberg is an author, musician, and filmmaker from Finnland who traveled to in India. Living there and studying the spiritual traditions of that country over many years, he came to contemplate the emptiness of modernity and the problems of the Kali Yuga (Iron Age) that face both India and the West.

In the book, and in this interview, he discusses India, Hindu spiritual traditions and discipleship, the West, and paganism.

Below is an interview with Guru Besar Marce De Thouars, son of the legendary Pendekar (Grandmaster) Paul De Thouars, head of the De Thouars Serak and Bukti Negara systems of Indonesian Pentjak Silat. Guru Marce is the only one of the senior master instructors under Pendekar Paul to teach both systems, Serak and Bukti Negara, as an integrated whole.

The interview was conducted by Manuel F. Nuñez — a student of the martial art and of esotericism — the interview looks at the nature, development, and magical or occult forces of the art — the latter being rarely mentioned in public.

Manuel F. Nuñez: Guru Marce, you are your father’s inheritor of both the family art of Pentjak Silat Serak and the shorter sub-­system that was created by your father (Pendekar Paul De Thouars), Pentjak Silat Bukti Negara. There are a few lineages of Silat Serak (or Sera as it was originally spelled) that hail from Java, Indonesia. Although this has been covered in other publications, for the readers of Phalanx, what is your family’s lineage of Pentjak Silat Serak? From where and from whom is it derived?

Guru Marce: The founders were from Surabaya, I believe, in Indonesia. It came from Mas Djut and Bapak Sera, for our system, Pentjak Silat Serak. There were a few teachers in between Bapak Sera and Mas Djut and it went to John DeVries and Ventje DeVries (the uncles of Pendekar Paul). There were a few teachers between Bapak Sera and Mas Djut but it was long before my time.

Mitch Horowitz is one of the most respected contemporary historians of the occult and related spiritual movements, such as New Thought (the movement that gave birth to the idea of “positive thinking” as a practice to change oneself and one’s life for the better). We recently spoke with him about the influence of occultism, Freemasonry, Hermeticism, and esotericism on the modern world (especially America), and what he believes authentic spiritual practice requires.

Phalanx: You’re the author fo the widely-acclaimed Occult America, as well as the more recent One Simple Idea, which explores the positive thinking movement from its origins in New Thought. Can you tell us what drew you to these subjects, and why you feel they’re relevant to our understanding of the world?

MH: I felt that the figures and ideas in these cultures were getting lost to mainstream history, as most of the historicism was being written by people who had no sense of the values that emanate from the spiritual search. Also it occurred to me that we cannot understand ourselves when we draw neat lines between “alternative” and mainstream culture. Ideas tend to enter our society, and all societies, from the fringes. This phenomenon is true not just for trends or popularizations, but it goes to the foundation of American history. Continue reading “Committing to The Spiritual Search: An Interview With Mitch Horowitz”→